The final round Blogger Contest entries are in, and we’re offering you the opportunity to weigh in on each article before we declare a victor. We’ll post two of the entries today and the final two entries tomorrow, and a poll will go up on Thursday so you can vote for your favorite blogger.
Their Final Round Assignment: Much in the spirit of EN’s annual April Fool’s posts (see 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), your final round assignment is to brainstorm an original idea for a fake news story and then write it up as a post for EN, complete with some sort of visual imagery you create (photo, video, diagram, drawing, etc.). We stress that access to expensive camera equipment is unnecessary; see Wylie’s FEI pictograms for proof that imagination, at least in the context of this assignment, will be your most invaluable asset. Words and visuals will be judged 50/50 on the same basis as previous entries (Interesting, Funny, Informative, Creative).
Here’s Rick Wallace’s final installment (for Rick’s previous entries, see Round 1, Round 2). Thanks for reading, Eventing Nation. Stay tuned for entries from Erin Critz, Sally Spickard and Ella Rak. Please leave feedback in the comments section.
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Bio: Rick Wallace is an upper level event rider — AGAIN. After years in hibernation. Father of awesome upper level event rider Elisa Wallace and also known as Mustang Girl. Have string of super talented horses: Ultimate Victory – 3 Star horse, Ultimate Decision – Amazing new horse which is dominating in dressage and Ultimate Timing – my dressage horse now being converted to eventing.
Entry:
Leap of Faith and Miracle Man
Vets Baffled over what is being called: The Miraculous Conception!!
Elisa Wallace had been trying for couple of years to breed her retired Advance mare, Leap of Faith. Elisa had purchased a stallion related to Rick Wallace’s 1990’s Advanced horse, Ultimate Trial, and she was excited about how the combination would work.
As time when by, it became apparent that the 17-year-old mare was going to be difficult to breed, and after several attempts by live coverage, Elisa had her ultra-sounded to discover no foal. It was October, and so she decided to have Leap of Faith, AKA Mia, flushed (scraping of the uterine wall) and treated so that she might attempt breeding in the following year.
As things go, Elisa was so busy the following spring she did not attempt to breed Mia. Elisa had taken her to a farm down the road and turned her out with other broodmares and would check on her periodically. Spring came and went, and Elisa missed spring breeding and decided to attempt breeding again in the late summer.
What happened next was shocking. Elisa went to the farm in August where Mia was turned out to check her before heading to an event. As she was walking up toward Mia, she saw what she thought was a baby deer. Mia was standing stoically by and as she got closer, Elisa almost fell to the ground. It was a foal! A beautiful bay colt with a huge white star was lying at the feet of Mia.
How did this happen? Mia had been checked and flushed in November of the earlier year. No pregnancy confirmation. Yet right in front of Elisa was a colt that no doubt was Mia’s. Elisa ran back to her farm, grabbed the truck and trailer and brought the pair home. What happened next was hair rising! In an attempt to make heads or tales of this baffling mystery, Elisa called her vet who came and checked the mare and foal out. Both were normal and healthy. Then they began piecing together “HOW”!
Calculations where done, and the last time the mare was bred was July the year before. She had been ultra-sounded, flushed and confirmed NOT Pregnant. The vet scratched his head and no amount of explanation could provide answers. Elisa decided to ship Mia and the colt to Auburn and once there, extensive testing was done.
DNA was pulled from the stallion and even another horse that was a cryptorchid. Even so, the calculations of time would not align with the August birth. What happened next in the testing phase was unexplainable. Elisa was called into the Auburn vet clinic office and had a large number of vets in her presence. They then announced the findings of the DNA test. They matched exactly to Mia. No deviation. No introduction of other DNA to that of the colt. He was an exact duplicate, a clone. But he was a colt. How and what was all Elisa could manage.
The vets called it the Miraculous Conception. Elisa called it the Immaculate Conception. Needless to say, the little colt, Miracle Man, is the talk of the town and Elisa can only believe he was sent for some divine reason. We shall all witness the coming years, and I am sure Elisa will hold on to this little guy. The future will tell us why he is here, and perhaps that will be the real story. Learn more about Miracle Man at www.teamwallace.org. It is truly a story worth following.
